Relationships with brokers are powerful part of a lender’s mortgage offering – Nicola Richardson, Fleet’s MD, speaks to Mortgage Solutions

Originally published by Mortgage Solutions

Strong relationships with brokers are a central part of Fleet Mortgages’ strategy and help shape its proposition, according to its managing director.

Mortgage Solutions spoke to Nicola Richardson, managing director of Fleet Mortgages since April 2026.

She explained how relationships with brokers underpinned Fleet Mortgages’ mortgage proposition.

“Relationships are key to our underlying strategy. It makes a real difference,” Richardson said.

She said brokers face growing pressures and increasingly value access to lender representatives who can help them navigate cases and discuss options directly.

“Brokers have a tough gig… so being able to pick up the phone, speak to someone, or meet for lunch and sort something out, run a case by someone, I think it makes a really big difference,” Richardson said.

The benefits of those conversations go beyond handling individual cases, she added, as they provide lenders with insight into where products and criteria may no longer be meeting market needs.

She continued: “It’s not just about getting a phone call from a broker and going, ‘Yep, the case fits’, or, ‘No, it doesn’t fit’.

“If it doesn’t fit, make sure that information is fed up to those who are making decisions. Actually, we can re-look at our proposition. If it’s not fitting, it’s not working.”

Richardson said broker feedback plays an important role in helping Fleet Mortgages respond to developments in the specialist buy-to-let (BTL) market, for instance, and understand changing customer requirements.

“The market is evolving so quickly, the needs of landlords, and therefore brokers, are changing. We need to make sure that we’ve got that feedback loop,” she said.

She added that regular engagement with brokers also helps the lender decide where to focus its efforts and development plans.

“It’s also just making sure we prioritise the right things. Let’s focus our attention on that as opposed to something else that perhaps we thought of a while ago,” Richardson said.

Accessibility and expertise

While pricing and criteria are often the first factors brokers consider when selecting a lender, Richardson said service becomes increasingly important once those hurdles have been cleared.

“Pricing and criteria are kind of the first hurdles,” she said.

One area Fleet Mortgages has “always really prioritised is making sure the underwriters are accessible”, Richardson added.

Alongside accessibility, brokers are looking for lenders that can offer expertise and respond quickly to enquiries, she said.

She continued: “They want to know what we’re talking about. They want to be able to access us in a really convenient way, at speed.”

Moving forward, Richardson said delivering expertise efficiently and consistently will continue to be increasingly important, as they seek to maintain strong relationships with brokers.